


Just a Dream

by celeste9



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 12:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil knew he was dreaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Dream

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt 'nightmares' on smallfandomfest and 'trapped in a dream' on my trope_bingo card.

Phil knew he was dreaming. He knew because he’d had this dream before. This nightmare.

He was on the helicarrier and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were running through the halls. They went straight past him as though he wasn’t even there, no matter how much noise he made. The helicarrier was under attack and Phil might as well have been invisible.

Phil raced down the halls, the path he had to take clear to him. It seemed to take no time at all within the fabric of the dream. He retrieved the weapon.

Loki was exactly where Phil knew he would be, near the containment cell built for the Hulk rather than inside of it. Thor, instead, was locked inside.

It was always the same. Loki with his dark hair and his cruel eyes, playing his games. Loki killed him.

Phil slumped to the floor, leaning his back against the wall because it was the only way he could keep himself upright. He trained the weapon on Loki.

But it wasn’t Loki anymore. Loki changed shape and then it was Clint standing there. It was Clint, but it wasn’t. Clint with those too blue eyes, filled with blankness.

_Barton’s been compromised._

He remembered saying the words to Natasha, how he’d had to focus on something substantial, something productive, so he wouldn’t think about Clint being forced to be Loki’s puppet. It was worse, so much worse, seeing it. Seeing Clint like that.

Phil knew what he had to do. It wasn’t Clint, not really.

“You can’t do it, can you?” Clint - Loki - asked. He spread his arms wide. “Go on, shoot me.”

He knew what he had to do.

He didn’t pull the trigger, his fingers frozen no matter how hard he shouted at himself to do it.

Clint started laughing, with Loki’s voice. The laughter rang in Phil’s ears as the life faded from his body.

This time, as he bled out, he didn’t wake up. He found himself in the same hall, the same S.H.I.E.L.D. agents moving past him. He tried to go another way but somehow he ended up in the same place. The weapon. Loki. Clint.

He bled out and he woke again in the helicarrier, over and over, always the same. The helicarrier. The weapon. Loki. Clint.

Phil wondered if this was his punishment. For being weak, for letting Clint and the Tesseract fall into Loki’s hands, for failing to stop him, for being _useless_ and just dying. (Or not dying. Whatever. He certainly thought he’d been dead at the time.) Maybe it was his punishment for not doing what was necessary, for not pulling the trigger. (He would have done it, in the space of his real life. He told himself he would have done it.)

Maybe he was doomed to repeat this nightmare over and over and over for the rest of what passed as life. Maybe it was what he deserved.

He hoped that his team would be taken care of.

“Fancy meeting you here,” a familiar voice said.

Phil turned around to face her, not certain if he was more surprised at the alteration in the pattern or that it was Skye. “Skye?”

She gazed around. None of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents took any notice of her, either, so she was apparently as invisible as Phil was. “If this is what the inside of your head looks like, I gotta say, Coulson, I’m disappointed.”

“It isn’t my best, I’ll admit. How did you get here?”

Skye shrugged. “Don’t ask me, it’s your head.”

“Are you saying I brought you here?”

“Well, if you think about it, anything I say is really just you. Because it’s your head.” Skye winced. “I hate dream logic. It’s nearly as bad as time travel.”

“Why you?” Phil wondered aloud.

“You’ll have to ask yourself that. But some other time, okay? Because I’m here to rescue you from your own personal, extremely sucky version of Groundhog Day. I know how to wake you up.”

“You’re here to rescue me?” Again he wondered, why Skye? If he was going to dream up a rescuer - and he didn’t even want to touch why his subconscious had decided he needed a rescuer anyway - then why Skye? Why not someone like May?

“Got it in one. And I hope you know how hard I resisted saying the Luke Skywalker line.”

Phil nearly smiled at that. “How are you going to get me out of here?”

Skye pulled a gun from the back of her jeans. Or at least, that’s where Phil assumed it had come from. Then again, this was a dream. Pulling guns out from thin air was distinctly possible. “I’ll shoot you.”

“That...” Phil frowned, resisting the urge to back away. “That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“I know, right?” Skye aimed the gun at Phil’s forehead.

It was certainly an image he could have done without. “Loki’s killed me ten times already and I’m still here. How do you know it will work?”

She smiled. “I saw it in a movie.”

She pulled the trigger.

-

Phil woke gasping, fighting for breath. There were voices all around but he focused on just one.

“He’s waking up! Coulson, it’s okay, you’re okay, just breathe.”

Skye.

“Skye,” he managed to say, feeling her squeezing his hand.

“Yeah. Yeah, Coulson, I’m here.”

Phil opened his eyes and was met by Skye’s big, beautiful brown eyes. The team was all crowded around behind her and Phil could recall few sights that had been more welcome than this one.

“You gave us all quite a scare,” Simmons said, taking his vitals.

“What happened?” Phil asked, his voice feeling raspy, and likely sounding even worse.

When Simmons opened her mouth, Skye cut in. “No big words, okay? The guy’s been unconscious. You hit your head, Coulson. Do you remember?”

Phil shook his head, immediately regretting the movement. It was true, then. It had all been in his head. Skye had been only a figment of his own imagination, just like Loki.

Loki. Loki was the god of mischief. This would have been a wonderful game to him, a -

No. Loki was on Asgard, imprisoned by his own people for his crimes. It had all been in Phil’s head.

“You were there,” he found himself murmuring aloud.

Skye’s eyes narrowed, her forehead furrowing in concern. “Coulson? You okay? I mean, okay for a guy with a head injury.”

Phil offered a tiny smile. “It’s nothing. Just a dream.”

Just a dream.

**_End_ **


End file.
